A WEEK before landmark polls, Bosnia's major Muslim parties warned yesterday that the country was not ready for democratic elections and urgently sought US help to improve the situation.
A Bosnian official said a delegation from 11 Bosnian parties, including the ruling party of President Alija Izetbegovic, had held talks with US embassy officials on the elections due on September 14th. Mr Mirza Hajric, an Izetbegovic aide, said two courses of action were discussed with the US officials.
"One possibility is that a parliamentary delegation might go to Washington. Another is that the [US] State Department might be asked to come up with a statement on the condition of [the] Dayton [peace accord]," he added.
The former prime minister, Mr Haris Silajdzic, speaking to reporters after a rally in the northern town of Tuzla, said "not one single condition" (for the elections) had been met.
"The 11 parties at the meeting today have decided to send a delegation to various governments in order to explain our needs, and then we shall decide if we will enter the elections or not," he said.
A communique issued earlier, after 3 1/2 hours of talks in Sarajevo, stopped short of calling for a boycott of the polls. Instead the party leaders said they would "urgently inform" Washington, which brokered the Dayton peace accords for Bosnia, of their concerns.
The party leaders, who included Tuzla's mayor, Mr Selim Beslagic, said that conditions for free and fair elections had not been fulfilled, "notably in the parts of Bosnia under the Pale regime," a reference to Serb controlled areas. "All present expressed reservations regarding the effects of the elections under such circumstances," it added.
The statement follows a series of hints that boycotting the elections remains an option for the leading parties who fear the vote will be the first step towards the division of the country.
US officials in Sarajevo confirmed yesterday that they had held talks with a Bosnian parliamentary delegation, but declined to elaborate.
A Bosnian Serb opposition, leader claimed meanwhile that his party's campaign in Banja Luka was being sabotaged by the hard line ruling Serb Democratic Party (SDS).
Mr Zivko Radisic, leader of the main opposition to the SDS, the Alliance for Progress and Peace (SMP), alleged that his party's supporters were being intimidated by the authorities and were being scared away from attending campaign rallies.
Mr Radisic launched his broadside against the SDS - led until July by Mr Radovan Karadzic but now controlled by the Serb hardliner, Mr Aleksa Buha in an interview with AFP.
The allegations came as the election tactics in this northern Bosnian city got dirty as campaigning for the multi tier Bosnian elections entered its last week.
Several opposition candidates in the elections in the Serb entity have received call up papers for army service over the election period, according to the Implementation Force (Ifor). "It appears that some prominent members of the university of Banja Luka have been summoned for army service during the election. All are members of an opposition party and all are candidates," an Ifor spokesman said.
The 1st Krajina corps of the Bosnian Serb army was also calling up polling station officers, including election chairmen in some cases, for so called mobilisation exercises on September 10th, the spokesman added.
The move was not contrary to the Dayton agreement "but it runs against the spirit of fair play and democratic elections," the Ifor spokesman said.